'Million Second Quiz' viewership drops following premiere

Viewership for “The Million Second Quiz” dropped for each of the five nights following its premiere, but three of those five episodes drew NBC's largest audiences, outside of sports, in their time periods since at least June.

The show's debut the averaged 6.52 million viewers Sept. 9, finishing second in its 8-9 p.m. time slot behind ESPN's “Monday Night Football” game and 21st among all broadcast and cable programs Sept. 9-15 and Sunday, according to live-plus-same-day figures released Tuesday by Nielsen.

The Tuesday and Friday editions averaged 5.83 million and 3.97 million viewers, the most for NBC non-sports programming in their time slots since June.

The Saturday episode averaged 2.87 million viewers, NBC's most in the time period, other than for sports, since March 30.

NBC's “Sunday Night Football” game between the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks was the week's most-watched program, averaging 20.54 million viewers, helping NBC be the most-watched network for the second consecutive week.

NBC averaged 7.01 million viewers for its prime-time programming. It was followed by CBS, which averaged 6.74 million, ABC, which averaged 4.48 million, ESPN, which averaged 4.25 million, and Fox, which averaged 3.98 million.

NBC was also first among viewers ages 18-49, the group targeted by NBC, ABC and Fox and coveted by advertisers because it watches less television than average and is harder to reach.

NBC's Sunday football programming accounted for four of the week's five most-watched programs in the category -- the “Sunday Night Football” game, the hour-long weather delay, nine-minute kickoff show and 23-minute third segment of “Football Night in America.”

NBC also led among viewers ages 12-17, 18-34 and 25-54.

ESPN's “Monday Night Football” game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Redskins was the week's most-watched cable program, averaging 16.52 million viewers, third among all prime-time broadcast and cable programs and the most for a “Monday Night Football” season opener in the eight years ESPN has carried the package.

The week's most-watched Spanish-language program was the Thursday episode of the Univision telenovela “Porque El Amor Manda” (“Because Love Commands”), which averaged 4.48 million viewers, finishing 50th among all prime-time broadcast and cable programs.

As usual, Univision was the most-watched Spanish-language network, averaging 3.08 million viewers. Telemundo was second, averaging 1.02 million, followed by UniMas, which averaged 850,000, Estrella TV, which averaged 190,000, Azteca America, which averaged 90,000 and MundoFox, which averaged 30,000.

The “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams” was the most-watched network nightly newscast for the 209th consecutive week and 256th time in the past 257 weeks, averaging 8.3 million viewers.

The “CBS Evening News” averaged 6.08 million viewers Tuesday through Friday, finishing third for the 363rd consecutive week and 118th since Scott Pelley became anchor. CBS' figures do not include Monday because of preemptions and scheduled changes caused by its coverage of the men's final of tennis' U.S. Open.

NIELSEN PRIME-TIME RATINGS

Prime-time television viewership numbers compiled by Nielsen for Sept. 9-15. Listings include the week's ranking and viewership for the week.